On Thursday, 6 July 1944, one month after the D-Day invasion of the European Continent, the front page headline in the European Theater of Operations edition of The Stars and Stripes was “Hand-to-Hand Battle Rages in La Haye.” On page four, it reports on D-Day Invasion heroics which won a 4th Infantry Division chaplain a Silver Star.

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11 Silver Stars Awarded Men of 4th Infantry – Chaplain Among Honored Heroes; Bronze Stars Presented to 33

by Charles F. Kiley, Stars and Stripes Staff Writer

WITH THE FOURTH INFANTRY, France, July 5–Eleven men of this division, including a chaplain, have received Silver Stars for gallantry in action in the Normandy campaign, and 33 others -26 officers and seven sergeants- Bronze Star Medals for meritorious service from June 6 to June 14. The Silver Star awards were made at a public ceremony in Cherbourg before more than a thousand soldiers and French civilians.

The chaplain was Julian S. Ellenberg, of Greenwood, S.C., who went ashore on D-Day only 30 minutes after the initial assault troops. Besides administering spiritual aid to the wounded and dying, Chaplain Ellenberg assisted in establishing and maintaining a first-aid station on the beaches under intense enemy fire, and despite slight wounds from shell fragments remained at the station until it was demolished…These were the first Silver Stars awarded to men of the Fourth…

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London: The Stars and Stripes, Vol. 4, No. 210. Thursday, July 6, 1944. pg 4.

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“The Stars and Stripes, Daily Newspaper of U.S. Armed Forces in the European Theater of Operations. Vol 4, No 210, Thursday July 6, 1944” (Author’s collection).

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